Czemierniki is a town in Radzyń Podlaski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Czemierniki. It lies approximately 13 km south of Radzyń Podlaski and 48 km north of the regional capital Lublin.

History

Czemierniki was granted town rights in 1509 by King Sigismund I the Old thanks to efforts of heir Mikołaj Firlej. In 1622, Bishop of Płock Henryk Firlej erected a palace with adjent gardens, thanks to which, according to the 19th-century Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland, Czemierniki was "famous as one of the most beautiful towns in Poland". In 1624, King Sigismund III Vasa and the Royal Court stayed in Czemierniki, when Kraków was hit by an epidemic. The Jewish population numbered 1,004 in 1921. Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany. Around 1,000 Jews were put into the Czemierniki ghetto, established by the Nazis in 1940. In 1942, Czemierniki Jews were sent to the Parczew ghetto, and then to the Treblinka concentration camp. Few Jews survived.